Thorough sterilization and proper storage of medical instruments is critical to avoid contamination and resulting issues. Without properly sterilized medical instruments, procedures performed with those instruments are susceptible to causing infection and spreading disease. As such, it is important for medical instruments to be sterilized completely after each time they are used and stored in a way that preserves their sterilized state until use.
Various techniques can be used to achieve sterilization, including subjecting instruments to high pressure and high temperature in an autoclave. Other sterilization techniques employ chemicals, such as ethylene oxide and/or hydrogen peroxide, sometimes using environments of steam, dry heat, with or without irradiation.